


The Changeling

by Des_Darling



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des_Darling/pseuds/Des_Darling
Summary: Sarah's life is upended when a Goblin Lord kidnaps her to the Underground and informs her that she is the true heir to the throne and the Labyrinth. As she copes with her true identity as the lost Goblin Princess, she is faced with a choice between fighting for her birthright or being with the man she loves.





	1. The Exchange

 

_In the center of the hearth, a crack shot through the shaft of the largest log. The young woman stoking the flames leapt to her feet when the horrible sound, like that of a bone being snapped in two, emanated from the fire. The rusting poker clattered out of her hands and onto the cobblestone floor at her feet just as the two halves of the log sundered along the jagged seam and tumbled down the meager pile to the smoldering ashes blanketing the bottom of the hearth._

_Wynne had always hated fire, ever since she was a little girl. At night, when the moors were silent save for the sibilant gales whispering along the dried grass, each loud pop and splinter of the firewood sounded sinister_ — _like some sorts of infernal beasts feasted in the flames dancing in the hearth. She saw them too_ — _their shadows thrown up on the walls of her family's hovel, lanky and exaggerated and grotesque in the orange light. For years, she never told Mam about how terrified of those beasts she was but was always shamefully relieved when the firewood ran out and left her family huddling together to brave the brutal winters._

_As she stared at that fire, at the two halves of the log that darkened and crumbed with every passing second in the flames, Wynne's fingers twitched with the desire to snuff it out. She had survived colder winters than this, could survive dozens more._

_But the baby wailing in the bassinet could not._

_Where beasts of flame and shadow had once terrorized the girl was now her own child_ — _the wriggling baby boy swaddled in a sodden blanket that one of the old wives in the village had scrounged up from children past. Since he had been born but three months prior, Wynne had heard nothing but his voice: little burbled whines between which shrieking cries were interspersed. Though she craved many things_ — _food, comfort, and companionship_ — _she craved one above them all: silence._

Just one moment of relief _, she wished silently as she sank back to her knees before the hearth._ Just one moment when I don't have to pretend.

 _Her eyes fell on the iron pot of stew simmering above the fire. She wasn't sure why she bothered pretending anymore. In the hovel perched on the rolling peak of a tall hill, she was completely isolated from the rest of the village now that the valleys had been choked with snow. Until spring returned, Wynne was trapped only with her cursed child and the withering grasses beyond her door. There was no one to keep her honest now; her husband was gone_ — _taken by the last gasp of the frigid winter the year prior._

_And so the wicked thought reigned: When spring returned, would anyone truly be surprised if a newborn living in the hovel at the top of the hill did not survive?_

_She drew her tattered shawl around her shoulders tighter, clenching her teeth to suppress the shudder that crawled through her._ _That Wynne was without any maternal affection or instinct had not mattered to whatever old gods had cursed her womb with a child anyway. When she was young, Mam had always told her that the old gods could see the darkness in your heart long before you even knew it was there. Had the death of her husband and the curse of this pale imitation left in his place been penance for the wickedness that seethed in her now?_

 _Her fingertips glistened when she touched the corners of her eyes, the gold light and dirt-crusted interior of the hovel rippling in her vision. A single tear slid down her cheek, cutting through the soot and grime layered on her flesh. For as much as she agonized over the unfairness of her life, she pitied her child_ — _born to a mother who would never love him, fated to live in squalor in the hills. That the old gods had brought them together was fair to neither of them, and she wished, oh she wished that someone would..._

_A memory of Mam chiding her older brother for invoking the goblins flickered like an ember in her mind._

_Wynne wished that someone would take him away._

_Months of disuse left her voice croaking and phlegmy when she finally spoke, testing the names of all manner of goblins said to haunt the hills, while tears fell freely from her eyes like spring rain showers. With the back of her arm, she swiped at those that collected on the underside of her chin, heavy with the sorrow and guilt and shame of what she was doing._

_A shrieking cry of the child tore through the hovel like that of a banshee; Wynne clamped her hands over her ears and pleaded to the wicked things underground._

_"If any of you listen," she gasped as sobs bobbed in her throat. "Take him. Take him, please. I do not wish to be his mother."_

_As soon as the words tumbled from her lips, everything fell silent. The child stopped crying. The hearth extinguished with a sinister hiss. The winds battering the hovel ceased._

_Pale light slanted over Wynne's huddled form as the door creaked open. When her eyes fell upon the proud figure silhouetted by the light, her trembling hands flew from her ears to her mouth to stifle her alarm._

_Mam had always said that goblins were squat creatures with scaly skin speckled with warts and puckered scars. They had gnarled claws for hands that could tear through flesh like it was supple butter and gnashing mouths full of needle-teeth and frothing with spittle. And they never spoke words, only cackled deviously before descending upon the foolish humans who summoned them._

_Yet the woman entering the hovel was anything but. Envy tightened in Wynne's chest as she took in the shiny, golden blonde hair weaved into a thick braid that circled her head like a crown, revealing a high forehead and emerald green eyes the color of costly jewels the lords of the countryside hoarded in their coffers. The woman's lips were flushed a delicate rose, and her skin milk-white and free of the blemishes and nicks of hard labor._

_But perhaps worst of all, was that she held a child_ — _a little girl no older than Wynne's own son who slept soundly like he never had._

_"I am here for the child." She declared. Her voice was like a winter breeze, so light and chilling all at once._

_"I..." the words caught in Wynne's throat as she scrambled to her feet, scrubbing at her still-wet cheeks and dusting her palms along her tattered skirts though it hardly made a difference._

_"You wished him to us, did you not?" The goblin woman frowned, taking Wynne's speechlessness for regret._

_Under the piercing gaze of the goblin, Wynne trembled in her slippers, barely able to squeak out, "I did."_

_She ghosted over to the bassinet, while Wynne could only watch petrified where she stood. Her features were expressionless as she beheld the child squirming within it, staring up at her with mismatched eyes. Under her breath, she said, "Yes, he will do."_

_Over her shoulder, she caught Wynne's gaze. "Does the child have a name?"_

_She had not named him, had not even looked at him when the old wives shoved him in her arms, her chest heavy with the fatigue of labor and the crushing sorrow of mourning. Naming him made him real and permanent, things she did not desire him to be, but with the goblin woman looking at her expectantly, Wynne felt compelled to say something._

_"Jareth." She forced, digging her nails in her palms to fight back the scream rising in her throat. It felt like betrayal to pass her husband's name onto the child._

_"Jareth." The goblin woman tested in that impossible voice of hers. "A suitable name for our future king."_

_"Our what?" Wynne gaped._

_Pivoting on her heel, the goblin woman abandoned the bassinet and came to stand before Wynne. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing what she could have looked like in a different life. In a different world. She pinched the ends of her pale blonde hair, feeling so small before the otherworldly woman across from her._

_"Aboveground kin, as promised, I will take the baby. I will raise this child you so despise, and in turn you will raise mine."_

_She extended her arms, the bundled baby girl, towards Wynne._

_"I can't," Wynne stammered. Didn't the woman see that the reason she was wishing her child away was because she could not be a mother?_

_"You will find her most agreeable and your own capabilities up to the challenge." The goblin woman insisted. Carefully but forceful still, she pressed the baby girl into Wynne's arms. "Sarah will be the envy of all the mothers in your pathetic little village."_

_The words hardly stung as Wynne's eyes drank in the image of the baby in her arms. Tufts of dark brown hair poked up from beneath the blanket, a striking contrast to her skin that was as pale and smooth as that of the goblin woman. A tenderness like that she had never felt for her own child warmed her stomach like a hearty stew._

_"Why are you giving her away?" Wynne wondered aloud._ To me?

_The goblin woman turned away and strode back to the bassinet, dipping her hands into the nest of sodden blankets and lifting the baby into her arms. With her back still to Wynne, she only said: "The affairs of the Underground needn't concern you, mortal. There is only one task left for you to complete, and then the baby will be nothing more than a fading nightmare in your life."_

_She wanted to know more about what the woman meant when she called Jareth a future king, wanted to know what affairs of the Underground had catalyzed this switch of children across the boundary of two worlds. But a compulsion, a desperate need to speak words she wasn't sure she had even known before that moment, eclipsed her curiosity._

_"I wish that the goblins would take him away."_

_Outside, the clangor of thunder in the gray clouds throttled the hill. Like bones, the wooden planks of the hovel rattled against one another, and Wynne clutched the baby girl to her breast protectively though the goblin woman stood by the bassinet unfazed. In her arms, Jareth fussed, but the woman merely cooed something to him in an ancient tongue and he fell silent once more._

_"It is done." A smile spread on her lips, revealing a mouth of pointed teeth. Her emerald eyes glistened with something not unlike mischief, and a chill bristled along Wynne's spine. "In thirteen hours, he will be one of my kin. If in that time you choose to reclaim him, you will have to face the Goblin Queen and her Labyrinth. Both are as horrible as all of you mortals believe our kind to be."_

_Her grin was positively feral. Wynne withered beneath her predatory gaze._

_If she had been a good mother, perhaps she would have fought for the child, fought to keep both him and the baby girl that the goblin woman had cared so little for to give to a human who was heartless enough to wish her own child away. But she was not courageous or clever or compassionate in the ways that the heroes who face goblins should be._

_No, Wynne was not a hero. So she remained silent as the goblin woman stepped out into the frozen afternoon and vanished in a plume of snow with the child that had once been her son._


	2. A Matter of Time

Sarah pushed past the double-doors of the lecture hall with a sheen of cold sweat gleaming on her brow beneath the fluorescent lights overhead. Though she tried to school her features into something of a calm or detachment as she descended the staircase, a mumble of sympathy from the guy crouched at the foot of the stairs told her that she was currently failing at that task. On all sides, the olive greens and heather grays of the other students' clothing coalesced into a dark blur of color, the sounds of parka sleeves swishing past one another and light chatter melding into white noise in her ears. When the exit of the building was finally within sight, Sarah all but broke out into a jog in desperation to be somewhere else, anywhere else.

A flake of snow pelted her cheek when she stepped out into the winter afternoon. Sarah's eyes watered and her nose scrunched at the sensation of her skin stinging as the brisk air rapidly cooled the heat of her anxiety. Tugging her scarf over her nose and mouth, Sarah huffed a breath into the tartan fabric and hurried down the main walkway of the campus; over her shoulder, she stole a glance at the building she had just exited to confirm that she was in fact alone. That he had not followed her.

Over the past year, Sarah's life had been a whirlwind of changes: she'd met and then promptly lost her most recent boyfriend to her freshman roommate; celebrated her twenty-second birthday; and finished her first novella.

But the biggest change of all had been the magic.

At first, she had not believed it and, truth be told, until today she had still been uncertain if it was all in her head. The first time it had happened was the morning that Sarah had stayed up until almost 5:00 drilling the recitation for her poetry midterm until the rhythm felt as natural as that of her own breath; two and a half hours later, when her alarm blared from its place on her nightstand, she slammed her fist on the snooze button, tugged the covers over her head, and groaned into her pillow for ten more minutes.

When the shrill sound roused her from sleep ten minutes later, Sarah begrudgingly heaved herself into a sitting position on the bed, swinging her legs over the side and letting her fuzzy socked feet dangle above the carpet. Scrubbing the drool crusted to her cheek with the back of her hand, Sarah yawned and eyed her alarm with sleepy disdain.

It was still 7:00.

She blinked in confusion, hesitating for half a moment before grabbing for the clock. Completely awake, she stared at the glowing green digits in alarm as her mind reeled with possibilities. It was broken. She'd set her alarm for ten minutes too early the night before. Anything seemed more plausible than the suspicion sinking in her stomach heavy as lead.

It happened six more times before she conceded that, however insignificant it may have been, Sarah had turned back time.

And she had done it again today. Desperate for just five more minutes on her final exam, eyes flickering nervously between the clock on the wall and the essay in front of her, Sarah had wished and wished and wished that she had just a few more moments to perfect her concluding paragraph; seconds later, when she watched the hands of the clock creep back to the position that they had been in five minutes prior, she sighed in relief and began to refocus her attention on her paper but met someone else's gaze instead. Seated a few rows below her, a strikingly handsome man that she had never seen before in the class had slid his gaze away from the clock and to Sarah, meeting her eyes; instead of balking at her, he smiled lazily, something amused and knowing twinkling in his dark eyes.

He had known.

She shivered at the image of his expression as it flashed again in her mind's eye, tugging her coat around her torso so tightly that her lungs burned from the constriction and the insufficiency of her shallow breaths.

He had seen her turn back time, which meant that she really could turn back time, which meant that magic was real, and if magic was real then those dreams of the Labyrinth had also been—

"In a hurry?"

Her steps faltered at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. The unforgiving cold had left the normally bustling walkway entirely devoid of students; with the twisting, wrought iron fences caging her in and the stony facades of the campus buildings looming on both sides, Sarah felt trapped and shifted anxiously as fear prickled along her arms and spine.

"Just trying to get somewhere warmer." She lied with her back still to the man, and was surprised at how little her voice trembled. "And you? I don't think I've seen you in class before."

"Mmm." He hummed. "Just here visiting, taking in the sights. It's really a lovely little place. So very...quaint."

The hairs on the back of Sarah's neck stood as she felt him draw nearer, warmth and some preternatural aura radiating off of him. In her pockets, her gloved hands balled into fists when he came to stand directly beside her, more than a foot taller than she was even in her heeled boots. She kept her gaze pinned on the gray stones of the path beneath her feet, unwilling to let him intimidate her into meeting his eyes.

"You seem frightened, my dear." He feigned surprise, and Sarah shivered both from the cold gust of wind that whistled past and from the compulsion to slam one of her fists into that inhumanly perfect jaw of his. He stooped slightly, bringing his lips close to her ear, and she could practically hear the smile in his voice. "Perhaps I should have led with a greeting from your friends below?"

A gasp tore from her throat, and she stumbled back a few steps in an effort to put as much space between them as possible. Chuckling, the man continued to smile warmly at her reaction, entirely unaffected by her mounting fear.

"Who are you?" She demanded; though she knew she could likely to do little to defend herself if he planned to attack her, Sarah still wrenched one of her fists from her coat pocket, wincing as the zipper snagged and tore the wool and cold trickled in through the gash.

The warmth of his amusement dipped until only the lightest hints played on the corners of his lips and his eyes, which continued to bore into Sarah's, impossibly dark and deep as an abyss in a way that human eyes could never be. He canted his head, and his voice was low and smooth as he said, "Did you know that a general once waged a war for a hundred years on her behalf just for a single glance from those famed emerald eyes? Somehow I imagine that he'd fight for five hundred, no—a thousand for yours."

"Who—" Her words died on her tongue as his glamour faltered, as she glimpsed the true and frighteningly otherworldly creature grinning beneath.

"Princess Sarah, our meeting is long overdue."

* * *

 

"She's gone, Jareth." Captain Tiernan didn't bother using the Goblin King's formal title when he stormed into his office, the doors slamming shut behind him; this was not a matter of state, rather a personal favor between trusted friends.

From behind the massive desk aching beneath mounds of parchment and wax and empty ink wells turned on their sides, Jareth pinned his mismatched gaze onto the man, indignation knitting his pale brows together. "Gone? What do you mean by gone?"

"Vanished, disappeared, evaporated, I don't know." The Goblin man threw his hands up exasperatedly. In one of the plush chairs facing the king's desk, Tiernan collapsed, a fine layer of dust pluming around his body. He clapped his palms over his face, rubbing his exhausted eyes. "All I know is that she's not there anymore, or at least not somewhere I can see."

"She's a human girl, where could she have gone that you could not follow?" Jareth probed.

The Aboveground was vast—vast in ways that Tiernan found exhausting and often vexing, but not impossible; given the time, he could search every last inch of the realm, leaving no stone unturned nor path unexplored. But that assumed that his charge—who he admittedly had grown both fond of and familiar with over the past few years—was the type of girl who could never stay in one place very long.

That he had always been able to find Sarah either on the university campus, areas adjacent, or in her childhood home was enough for Tiernan to know that her sudden disappearance meant something else entirely; when Jareth scowled after the many moments of heavy silence, it told Tiernan that his king had also arrived at the same conclusion.

"I want you to bring anyone who has left the Underground in the past month before me." Jareth's eyes were cold as steel, his demand dripping with venom. He pushed away from his desk, rising to his full height in the menacing glory of the Goblin King. "Someone needs to be reminded of what it means to cross me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun...
> 
> I'm slowly getting back into the swing of writing for leisure now that my courses aren't quite as writing heavy (and thus exhausting), so I'm looking forward to updating this story more; I have it all plotted out and am super excited about the direction its heading in, so hopefully you all will enjoy the ride as well! I always love reading everyone's thoughts on things, so please leave a comment on your way out. I'll see you all soon!


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